Hellooooo!

I got a small slowcooker for Christmas (Morphy Richards 2.5l) and so i've been trawling your posts and recipes with growing excitement (VERY sad - i have officially become my mother) and am just beginning to have a shot at it.

I made a beef stew with dumplings last week (containing 800g of diced beef brisket, an onion, 2 carrots, 3 potatoes, 2 vege stock cubes and a handful of pearl barley, and dumplings which were just SR flour and suet and salt and some dried herbs) which came out beautiful - really melty meat, really lush herby dumplings and though i had to chuck a bit of flour in it to thicken (i didn't coat the meat with flour before browning) it was great otherwise. Next time i'm going to swap a potato for a parsnip. I LOVE experimenting with food :P

Tonight while i sleep i'm making smoked bacon, split pea (yellow) and lentil soup (also contains a couple of diced potatoes, an onion, a clove of garlic and some herbs). Will it be ok overnight does anyone know? It has plenty of water and is on low. The peas were only soaked for 2 hours and the lentils not at all, so they'll take some cooking anyway. I am wanting it done by tomorrow morning as i am generally too busy with DD to get prep done before about 9am and i need it for lunchtime.

BTW BG, i am really excited to try a rice pudding! I hadn't thought about puddings in it, only stews and casseroles and soups...mmmm!

Bx